Research before choosing for-profit career college

Consumer alert

With costs that can exceed $30,000 for a two-year degree, many graduates emerge from career colleges saddled with debt, and for some, a diploma that employers and other schools may not even recognize, according to critics

Everest's website doesn't list cost information,but an admissions representative told the Sun Sentinel that one program available at its Pompano Beach campus — offering an associate's degree in criminal justice — costs about $35,000. The school says that can lead to a job as a corrections officer, which at Florida's Department of Corrections pays about $30,000 to $45,000 a year.

Bad credit, no problem

Career colleges make it easy for students to enroll with little or no money up front. Financial aid representatives help students line up loans. Even candidates with a bad credit history are not discouraged.

Among the frequently asked questions on the website for Florida Career College, which has campuses in Lauderdale Lakes and Pembroke Pines: "My credit is terrible! Can I still receive financial aid?'' The answer: Yes.

"People are desperate right now to improve their skills and marketability because jobs are so scarce,'' said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, a California-based nonprofit organization that studies student borrowing through its Project on Student Debt. "That adds up to a ripe marketing opportunity for for-profits: ‘Come over here. We'll get you started right away, and boom, you'll get a great job.' For far too many, what it really means is you'll take on a lot of debt that you won't be able to pay back.''

Among graduating seniors in 2008, 96 percent of students at for-profit schools had loans compared with 72 percent or less of students at traditional universities, according to an analysis by the Project on Student Debt. They also came away owing the most: an average of $33,050, versus $27,650 for students at private nonprofit schools, and $20,200 for public university grads.

The Career College Association, a trade organization, contends the higher borrowing is a result of the lower-income students attending their schools. "They have more debt because they have fewer financial resources to begin with,'' said spokesman Bob Cohen.

That same student makeup also explains federal loan default rates, according to the association. While higher than other types of colleges overall, the rates are similar when compared to individual schools serving low-income students, Cohen said.

"If we as a society want to give lower-income people and working adults access to higher education, there is clearly more of a risk,'' said Harris Miller, CEO of the association.

The greatest risk, though, is not for the schools, since they receive their money up front, but to the students taking out the loans and ultimately, to taxpayers. Unpaid loans follow former students through life, can ruin their credit and lead to serious consequences, including the federal government garnishing their wages and withholding their tax refunds. Even declaring personal bankruptcy is not an option to shed student loan debt, except in rare cases.

"You want to be very careful as a consumer taking on a huge amount of debt based on the assumption that you're going to have a great job that will make it manageable to pay off,'' Asher said.

Mixed reviews

Career colleges place about 70 percent of their students in jobs, Miller said, though there is no research on whether graduates are financially better off than before they enrolled.

In South Florida, educators, job recruiters and employers say the quality and value of a career-college education varies.

"There are some very fine, in my opinion, for-profit institutions in our local community,'' such as Keiser, said David Armstrong, president of Broward College, formerly Broward Community College.

Those schools meet the same accreditation standards as public and nonprofit colleges. But others are accredited by less reputable organizations created "for the purposes of being able to qualify [schools] for federal financial aid," Armstrong said.

Career-college students routinely apply to the private, nonprofit Nova Southeastern University only to find their coursework is not accepted.

"I don't think there's a month that goes by that we don't hear some kind of really tragic story of somebody who spent a lot of money at one of these institutions and then tried to transfer into either our institution or a state university, and the credits don't transfer in," said Nova Chancellor Ray Ferrero Jr.

Some recruiters say the degrees can still be valuable in the marketplace.

Beth Hanuka, manager of Ultimate Staffing in Fort Lauderdale, said any higher education or training is a benefit for job candidates. "Thumbs up, from our perspective,'' she said of career-college graduates.

But Andrew Wallace, spokesman for the staffing service CareersUSA, said some employers "absolutely do not put a whole lot of stock in these degrees.''

"Would we rule out sending someone on an interview because they had gone to one of these schools? No,'' Wallace said. "The employer may say, ‘No thanks,' but we won't make that judgment.''